Features

The almost complete and pretty long list of Antville features.

There are various ways to install and run Antville: starting with the all-in-one package AntClick which contains everything you need for testing (Webserver, Application server, embedded database) – just unzip the files and start – up to the “industrial strength” setup using Apache Webserver (or any other capable of running servlets or proxying services) and an external relational DBMS (e.g. MySQL or PostgreSQL).

Basically, all you need is an operating system that supports Java 2 (Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X or the like) and the Java installation of course.

• Simple and fast creation of weblogs (it really takes just two clicks!)

• Mass-hosting of weblogs – one Antville installation can easily host several thousands of sites

• Numerous defineable weblog preferences

  • Title, tagline, number of stories to show on frontpage
  • Free language and timezone definition (weblogs can be “placed” in any timezone)
  • Date and time formats (10 long, 12 short)
  • Weblogs can be either public or private, i.e. accessible only for owners / administrators or privileged members of a weblog
  • Limit the creation of stories, polls etc. to privileged members or allow it for every registered user
  • Option to define a callback URL to be invoked each time the site content has changed

• Fully customizeable layout

  • Central font family and size definition
  • Every weblog consists of numerous skins (HTML templates) for certain page parts, lists, editing forms etc.
  • Users can choose from a rich set of macros, special tags that can be embedded in skins, stories, comments etc., to further customize the layout and structure of a weblog
  • Each skin can be modified to the personal needs using a web based skin manager and editor; there is also a diff function which clearly displays which lines have been altered
  • Calendar-based and / or page navigation

• Easy and flexible story management

  • Stories can be extended freely: by default stories and comments consist of predefined input fields, but one can easily add e.g. a teaser, summary or the like
  • Stories can be tagged
  • Stories can be saved offline, be published on the start page of a weblog or be set to appear hidden, being reachable via its URL or its tag(s) only.
  • Creation date of stories can be modified (allowing e.g. backdating stories copied from an older blog or automatic publishing stories at a future date)
  • Collaborative story editing: authors can decide who is allowed to edit their own story
  • Backlink logging (referrers) for each story
  • Import and export stories as a Blogger export file (.xml)

• User comments

  • By default any story can be commented by registered users
  • Comments can either appear as flat discussion (non threaded), two level deep ("simple threading") or with unlimited levels (the slashdot way)
  • Commenting can be disabled for single stories or for the whole weblog

• Advanced image handling

  • Images can either be uploaded or fetched from a URL
  • Automatic resizing and creation of thumbnail images
  • Images are organized in a separate pool for easy maintenance
  • Images can be embedded in any story, comment or skin either in full size or as thumbnail linking to the full size image

• Easy file handling

  • Upload any type of file (eg. mp3, pdf, zip, html)
  • Files are organized in a separate pool for easy maintenance
  • Download counter for each file
  • Files can be embedded in any story, comment or skin

• Polls

  • Online polls can be created and managed in a separate pool for easy maintenance
  • Polls can be embedded in stories or skins
  • Only one vote per poll for each user, but users can change their vote in a poll as long as the poll is open for voting
  • Public list of all polls created within a weblog

• Registration, login and password

  • When the client permits the execution of JavaScript, the password is salted and encrypted before being sent to the server
  • All passwords are saved salted and encrypted in the DB
  • In case users forget their passwords, they can have a reset code being sent to their mail accounts
  • Users just have to register once within each Antville installation
  • Automatic login using cookies (for increased security, they are tied to the IP address of the client)

• Community features

  • The list of recently updated sites can be integrated in the layout of every weblog
  • All users can subscribe to weblogs, i.e. add them to their shortlist
  • The subscriptions are ranked by their last update
  • Members can be contacted via a form that keeps the recipients e-mail address private

• E-mail notification of changes

• Customizeable spam filter for referrers and backlinks

• Multiple user groups: owners / administrators of a weblog can grant special rights to subscribers by simply assigning them to one of the groups “owners”, “managers” or “contributors”.

• List of the most read stories of a weblog

• Full text search functionality

• Support of various application programming interfaces; users can use other editors and services (e.g. w.bloggar) to post to their weblog

• RSS 2.0 feeds

  • Every weblog has RSS feeds containing just stories or stories and comments or just comments
  • On a per weblog basis, every tag has its own feed
  • Antville offers a root RSS feed containing a list of the recently updated weblogs

• Virtual site hosting: provide weblogs under custom domains

• System management

  • Web based system setup: define the language of an Antville installation, system e-mail address, disk quota per site etc.
  • Creation of new weblogs can be allowed for every registered user or limited in various ways:
    • Trusted users (system administrators can define who is a trusted user)
    • Users who have been registered longer than 1 to 90 days
    • Users who have registered before a freely defineable date
    • If desired Antville can force users to wait a definable amount of days (1 to 90) between the creation of two weblogs (to prevent “name grabbing”)
  • Web based management (including search) of weblogs: grant trusted permissions to weblogs, block or remove weblogs
  • User accounts: grant trusted permissions or system administration rights to users, block accounts
  • System status page shows detailed information about requests (both HTTP and XML-RPC) as well as uptime, errors, threads and memory consumption
  • Automatic system cleanup and logging
  • Watch for weblogs being private for longer than a customizable amount of days
  • Automatically block weblogs that are private for too long (customizable period, weblog owners are notified by mail)
  • Automatically remove weblogs that are inactive for too long
  • Creation, blocking and deletion of weblogs and all automatic cleanup tasks are logged in database and can be viewed as well as searched in the system management section